5. Drinks used as penance for Surapana (drinking of spirituous liquor)

All through the ages, the drinking of sura has been condemned unanimously by all the sources. Such a sinner had to drink as expiation that liquor boiling hot, or to drink boiling hot cow's urine, milk, ghee, water or liquid cow-dung, until his body had been scalded, resulting in his death. Then only did he become free from that sin. Here it would not be out of place to touch upon the the second mahapataka. surapana The word sura which occurs several times in the Rigveda was prepared from three substances - jaggery, grapes and flour. Of the three varieties of sura gaudi, madhvi and paisti, it was the sura prepared from flour (i.e. paisti) that was forbidden by the various digests, to all the upper classes. In other words, any one belonging to the three higher varnas incurred a great sin by drinking it. Moreover, the brahmanas and the brahmacaris studying the Vedas, had to abstain from all kinds of intoxicants. Although

369 all intoxicants were forbidden to brahmanas, at all stages of life, the Gaut. Dh.S.(II.25) madyam nityam brahmanah and the Ap.Dh.S. (XVII.21) a brahmana drinking sura of the gaudi or madhvi kind would not be guilty of a mahapataka but anupataka (according to the Visnu Dh.S.). However, intoxicants other than sura prepared from flour, were not condemned for the ksatriyas and vaisyas. According to the Vas Dh.S.(III.256) even the drinking of sura made from flour is a mahapataka for the wife of a brahmana, ksatriya and vaisya. But the sudras could drink any intoxicant: if they so desired. The Pr.V. (p.93) makes it clear that drinking sura means taking it down the throat and not simply touching it with the lips or spitting it out in case it enters the mouth. Moreover, some commentators like Haradatta on the Gaut. Dh. S. (XXIII.1) hold that this penance is meant for one who knowingly and repeatedly drinks sura prepared from rice-flour. For a ksatriya or vaisya drinking sura prepared from rice flour, this penance was to be undertaken after vomiting out the contents of the sura from the stomach. So the drinking of red-hot sura, urine of cow, gosakrdrasa (juice of dung), milk, ghee or water as expiations for the sin of surapana would feature in this study on drinks.